ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: To discuss the state of education we're joined now by Tom Alegounarias, the president of the New South Wales Board of Studies, and Professor Steven Schwartz, vice-chancellor of Macquarie University.

Professor Schwartz is also the former dean of medicine at the University of Western Australia and was employed by the Blair government in 2004 to review the way students are selected for university in the United Kingdom.

ALI MOORE: We've heard Dr Kim Jaggar in that story and also the students, how widespread is rote learning and plagiarism in the New South Wales HSC? Is the vast majority doing it? Is it prevalent? And is it a problem? Tom Alegounarias.

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Well the first thing I'd say Ali is that we need to separate the unethical and at times corrupt issue of cheating from the teaching and learning issue of rote learning and how effective and how useful it is

With regard to the corruption issue, I ...

ALI MOORE: Which to clarify is really when you are rote learning someone else's work?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Well when you're using someone else's work without recognition, plagiarism, when someone has done the work for you and you present it as your own is how I'd put it most basically. And we don't have any evidence that over the past say four of five years, for which I've seen the data at least, there's any growth in that. And it's always been an issue. But ...

ALI MOORE: So how big an issue? Can you give me like a percentage of cases, for example, can you quantify it?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Well I would say in the past five years there are probably around 100 to 150 circumstances in which students can't certify that the work is theirs. And when you consider of course, when I say the work, a particular question or project. Now in each exam, and students will do five or six exams, there'll be up to 10 or 12 questions, sometimes the projects are worth more than that proportion. So it's really a very miniscule issue.

Having said that, what we are aware of, with regard to both the cheating, which is one issue, and the rote learning on the other, is there is an increase in intensity of competition, around the world. And a system such as ours, the HSC, and similar systems, particularly for whole cohort school testing which tests a wide range of capacities, are being tested.

And I'm pleased to say that the HSC is standing up extremely well, as well as any other, or better, than others in the world. And that's what the evidence is showing us.

ALI MOORE: The question then, though, becomes do you need to change the system so that the rote learning is not an attractive way of getting us all through the system?

But let me leave that question for a moment and ask you, you say that the evidence shows that you've got a certain number of cases. How many would go through undetected, though, given that a marker has never seen the work after student before, how would they necessarily know whether it was theirs?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: There are a lot of processes in our systems that are designed particularly around that. And I have to tell you they always have been. When I did the HSC there were always rumours of someone down the street that you could pay to do your exam.

But it isn't as simple as I hand in my project. Students maintain a log, they need ... the log is inspected and certified, it has to be inspected periodically at set times. The log's entries have to match the development in the project as you're developing the project.

Now as, again, there's issues of cheating and there's issues of rote. Rote and memorisation is a much more complicated issue. And then you have to say, what is it about it that we're concerned about? Is it the lack of educational value? Which is one issue. Is it the predictability of an exam which makes it not valid as an assessment? Which is a different issue. And is it the pressure that the students are under? Which again is a different issue.

But I can say to you with regard to the cheating, there's no data that indicates that we have an increase. And we have stricter and better-controlled mechanisms with the assistance of all the principals, the principal on screen and all others, and teachers, that guard against that issue.

It is a highly complex issue. You'd have to put a disproportionate amount of effort to maintain a cheating process across a number of questions across a number of exams to the point where you're not actually going to do well in the HSC.

ALI MOORE: Steven Schwartz, let me bring you in here, because of course Tom Alegounarias is giving us a New South Wales view, and New South Wales is the only state where English is actually a compulsory subject. Do you think it's a national problem, cheating?

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: Well remember there's also the International Baccalaureate that's offered in all the States and that has English as a requirement as all. But yes of course, it's a perennial problem and it's been a problem forever.

ALI MOORE: But has it got worse, is there increasing pressure now?

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: I think there is increasing pressure. The pressure on students to get admitted, as you heard in the sequence, to their preferred course at their preferred university is very high. And parents are willing to spend quite a lot of money on private schooling, on private tutoring, to help those students get into those courses. And they must feel that pressure and some of them resort to teaching, to cheating rather, because of that pressure.

And that's a sad thing in a way, because it's a perversion of the whole purpose of education, isn't it. Education, the value of education is not just what you can get for it, it's also what you become by it. And we are taking that second part away, that "know thyself, come to learn about yourself, come to learn about your strengths, come to learn about what interests you," and we're sacrificing that to a contest. And a contest that really doesn't need to be conducted the way it has.

ALI MOORE: You both made the point that cheating has been around forever and a day, but if it's increasing, I wonder to what extent it is the system that's letting the students down, that there is now this enormous focus on this one score?

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: Well that's right, and I think that's a huge mistake. In 2004 I did a review of all the universities in England for the Blair government. And one of the things we looked at was admissions. And we concluded that the admissions process, particularly the kind of admissions process we have here in Australia focusing on a single score, on a single day, at a single time, is not the way to choose students.

Really you need a much more comprehensive, much more global assessment where no single indicator carries all the weight. Particularly an indicator that is really not as accurate as people say it is.

We want to know what the students like, what they want to do in life, what other interests they might have, how hard they've worked, what obstacles they've had to overcome to get where they are.

ALI MOORE: But Tom Alegounarias I presume that you would probably argue that in fact it is more broader, because it is only 50 per cent for the exam isn't it?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Well not only that Ali, but the exam itself and the educational process, remember the HSC is a two-year educational process, the exam is one aspect of that, there are ongoing assessments, it's enormously broad.

The exam itself is not the entry requirement. Universities use the data that the exam produces to determine the number of places they provide. The exam doesn't, isn't structured around the ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admission Rank), as it's known nationally, the exam is part of a highly complex and broad assessment process, includes students creating projects and includes participating in drama if you like. It includes vocational education...

ALI MOORE: But I guess that ATAR, bottom line, that Tertiary Admission Rank, is the be-all and end-all and whether you design it so that universities, it's good for universities the ultimate outcome is that's what they use.

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: But Ali it's really only used in Australia. It's not the common way of admitting students to university. It's certainly not used in the USA, it's not used in the UK, it's used here. It's simple, it's cheap, it's fast, but it doesn't give you a global comprehensive view of that student.

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: Yes, they're not boiling things down to a single number. We're doing it. And then we're using that number, I think, quite inappropriately.

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: I'd have to say as well, Ali, that some of the pressures that students and parents are feeling aren't a result of the ATAR alone, I agree with everything Steven has said.

But students are feeling the pressure where they don't have the high stakes associated with it. It is partly a reflection of a change in community. And New South Wales and Sydney, for example, Melbourne, Brisbane, are now global cities, and people begin and go through their schooling in a global environment, aware of an international competitiveness. And that translates into the approach to schooling when it's an aggregate of everyone's attitudes.

ALI MOORE: Are you also seeing, as I suppose we saw a hint of in that story, different cultural approaches to education, different ethnic groups that do have different focuses?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Sure and we have to be careful not to diminish the value that some cultures place on educational achievement, because, in fact, this nation is the beneficiary of a lot of that achievement.

And they may look at other families and say "well, you know, I wouldn't get my child up at 5 or 4am to go to swimming squads when they're never going to make the Olympics or even a national team." They may think that's undue pressure.

Now overall I think all educators are concerned about the idea that there might be too much pressure on some children too early and that the competitive pressure for places is having an effect on limiting the roundedness of students. But we have to be careful not to generalise that some cultures are getting it wrong and others are getting it right or that it's the same within all culture.

ALI MOORE: Certainly, but if there is an issue in that this pressure has become enormous, and indeed it is a global issue, it's not an Australian issue, what can be done in the school education system and in the approach taken by universities to develop a more well-rounded student and one that is not sheerly panicked by what final ATAR they get and what course they can get into?

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: Well I wouldn't like to speak to the schools, although I have some ideas, I'll get back to them, but certainly from our point of view at the universities, we can start admitting students in a rather more global way.

I'll give you an example, one of the things we know from a great deal of research, that two students with the same ATAR, one from say a Sydney or Melbourne private school, one who's had after-school tutoring and summer, special summer schools, that student when compared to a student in more economically deprived background who hasn't had the benefit of tutoring, if they both have the same ATAR, when they both come to university, it's the student from the deprived background who's more likely to excel. We know that. There's a lot of research to show that.

ALI MOORE: Is that because they've learned to learn?

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: And that's because they haven't had all that extra help. They've achieved that ATAR without all that assistance. And so they're a better bet. Universities know this and are now tilting their admissions toward those students.

So that in a way all the pressure that's being put on some of these students is in vain, because we actually know that the scores are not accurate reflections of people's actual ability.

ALI MOORE: But that's been a very slow process. I mean I guess if you look at, I think it's Sydney University and the medicine department, you can't go straight into medicine, you have to do an undergraduate degree.

Should Australia be following the American path and ensure that more students go through the undergraduate path before they leap into medicine or leap into law?

ALI MOORE: Oh absolutely. I agree with that completely. But not just for that reason. But because it gives them a chance to actually get educated.

When I was the dean of medicine, we had a whole, I can't remember, but a whole lot of students every year who would say to us, I'm here because my mum and dad want me to do medicine. It's not something I really want. If they had that opportunity to grow at university, to find out what they really want, to excel in it, perhaps they would've chosen a different career path. And they'd be better off and I imagine their patients would be better off as well.

So yes I do think that the American system has a lot to offer. Remember Melbourne have adopted a very similar system at their university now and I think that other universities will follow.

ALI MOORE: Do you think it would be a top-down approach that the more the universities change the way they accept students the pressure will start to alleviate? That students will realise that cheating on their final test is really not going to get them anywhere, except perhaps the first place?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Sure, though with regard to the cheating I have to say it's an extremely marginal activity. We have no ... our concerns are more about the pressures on achievement.

ALI MOORE: But even, I guess, the rote learning, just to get through. Because if you rote learn something you can regurgitate it but do you understand it?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: That's a more complex issue that I'm happy to come back to. But we agree that, I agree with Steven that the broader range of processes for entering university can be for the benefit of the student, the nation and the university.

Suiting the course, finding a course that suits you is to your own benefit and your life chances. So we have data, we have information on students. The HSC is rich with information about the various things students can do and are interested in. It need not be boiled down to a single score. It has its benefits, the ATAR, I don't want anyone to dismiss it and I'm sure Steven doesn't want to dismiss it completely either.

But the breadth and the richness is something we're able to do and we should pursue that. And schooling would support that.

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: I actually think students are individuals and they should be assessed as individuals. Not as numbers and a ranking, and particularly the ATAR ranking which remember is just a rank order, it tells you absolutely nothing about what the individual knows. It tells you nothing about what the individual's like.

ALI MOORE: But this is exactly the same argument that is had about the ranking of schools. And I wonder if the ranking of schools actually has only exacerbated this problem, because it is in the interests of a school and of a teacher to ensure that they do well?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: For me, Ali, the far bigger issue is the competitive nature of our community and our economy and our society. And, therefore, it's very difficult for me to judge individual students and parents and families when we all know people that have been through the system that want to do the best that they can. And they want to ensure that they leverage what's available for them. And schooling is the one public area that you can use for private and public benefits.

So it's hard to judge them on that issue.

There is competitive pressure among schools. That's part of an environment that's become much more competitive overall.

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: Can I go back to the rote learning issue, and one of the things that occurred to me when I was watching the segment and thinking about it, is that the students who are graduating now will be retiring in, say, 40 years from now.

We need to be able to educate them for all the various changes that can take place in those 40 years. And we don't really know what they are. We don't know what will happen five years from now, let alone 40.

And rote learning is kind of a perversion in that sense, because it just teaches them to regurgitate, it's not creative, it's not thinking, it's not deep. They're not learning about actually the subject or about themselves or about their own abilities. Their creativity is gone, and by definition, in rote learning. And what sort of preparation will they be having for the kind of world that they're going to face?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: I agree.

ALI MOORE: How do you ... I guess, I get a sense in some ways you very much dismiss the issue of cheating, and I know rote learning and cheating are not necessarily the same thing, but if you listen to that story there is a perception that it's very widespread. And I know talkback radio today was very big on it. I wonder if there is a slightly bigger problem than you acknowledge?

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Oh there is, I'm not saying it's a small issue, trust me. The Board is, the Board of Studies is engaged in it, fully engaged in it. What I'm putting in context is the cheating issue.

Now the rote learning issue and the memorisation issue is of itself is highly complex. On the one hand it's very specific bits of knowledge and information that you can commit to memory and regurgitate. On the other hand the exam process has adjusted and is adjusting very, very carefully to ensure that we can differentiate between those who simply come in and seek to stamp their answer and those who are creative in the context.

ALI MOORE: But things like having the same theme in the English essay for two years in a row, shouldn't you make it so hard no-one can actually possibly predict ...

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: That's a very good example. By making the question more specific and changing trickly every year, you are likely, much more likely to reward those who either guessed the answer or responded to the trick as distinct from those who actually have analysed and know the context.

So this year, for example the question on Hamlet asked the students to address the question through the final passage. The same question could be used when you're answering a question on Citizen Kane, but you have to adopt your answer to the very specific final passage or final scene, apply your knowledge in that context.

The proof is in the pudding. We're really effectively differentiate students on the basis of how well they've done.

Examiners have been complaining for 50 years about rote learning. It's not not a problem, we work on it very, very carefully. So this year students complained about the twist in Hamlet, last year they complained about the twist in Studies of Religion. When I did my Shakespeare, the question was: "Did Othello love Desdemona too much or too well? Discuss." Now my pre-prepared answer was appropriate to such a broad and inscrutable question.

ALI MOORE: I guess it was your answer and not someone else's. And that's the key point.

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: Well that's the cheating issue and that is something that there's a lot of good work. When there's a pattern of cheating it goes to ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption), and we've referred things to ICAC ...

ALI MOORE: Sure, and we heard about that in the story. We are almost out time.

But if both of you had your druthers and if you could change something in the education system to make it better, to provide students with a more rounded outcome, what would it be?

STEVEN SCHWARTZ: I think I would focus on creativity Ali. I think that what happens is children all start school as creative as possible. There is that hilarious story about the little girl, teacher has assigned a drawing, asks the students to make a drawing and she's beavering away. And the teacher says, "what are you drawing?" And she says, "I'm drawing a picture of God." And the teacher said, "well that's pretty hard, no-one knows what God looks like." And she says, "well they will when I'm finished."

And what happens to that little girl 10 years or 15 years later? All the creativity is beaten out of her. She's learned a lot of things, often by rote, sometimes not, but the whole creativity that's required if we're going to continue to succeed in 20, 30, 40 years needs to be part of the curriculum, I think.

TOM ALEGOUNARIAS: And for me, at the moment Ali, my mind is on what was just touched on just towards the end of your story there, the access to resources and opportunities and interaction of students in regional areas, particularly low socioeconomic, poor students in regional areas, that's where the nation can benefit and make a contribution to fairness and equity.

ALI MOORE: So many challenges. Gentlemen thank you very much for joining us this evening ...